Disclaimer: I guess this is a dual disclaimer, huh? First off, I don't own these characters. But we all knew that, right? Secondly, this is a hentai fic. That's right, hentai. For those of you who don't know what that is, it means "graphic sex scenes." So, you are warned.

The room was hot. Stifling hot. Filia wiped her forehead and reasoned it had to be at least a hundred degrees or more. She was glad the sun was going down and the last rays were beginning to filter in through the opened window of her inn room. A soft breeze caused the silky curtains to flutter but did nothing to cool Filia off. Filia was laying in bed, on her stomach, sweating profusely. Her body was slick with sweat and she knew her sheets had to be absolutely soaked by now. She'd taken the last of her clothes off yesterday in an effort to cool off, so at least those wouldn't get soaked.

Filia closed her eyes, wishing sleep would take her. Or death. Or anything. 'Anything would be better than this damned heat!', she thought to herself, sighing. Her whole body was burning up, as though she had a fever, and nothing could cool her off, and she'd been that way for the past week. Only three days ago had it gotten so bad that she had to resign herself to staying locked in her room so the others wouldn't see the state she was in. Now her entire body ached, not only from her ailment, but from the atrophy of laying in bed for three straight days. But she didn't dare leave her room, or even get out of her bed. She knew if she walked downstairs, even to eat, she would do something she'd regret.

Filia was in heat.

Dragons, like most other creatures, choose mates at some point in their lives. Female dragons, much like other females in the animal kingdom, would occasionally go into heat, driving them to mate and hopefully produce young. Filia, being a female dragon, was no exception. However, unlike most other dragon women, the priestesses at her temple were required to remain celibate. In order to do this, they used magic to repress their heat and continue serving the Fire Dragon King. From time to time, they'd go into heat again and the spell would have to be re-cast. This worked fine, but the only problem was, only a dragon priest could perform the spell correctly.

Filia, far from home and in a strange land, had no priest to cast the spell for her. When she first felt the heat taking hold, she tried to fight it back herself, hoping perhaps that it was only a state of mind. At first, it was little things that she thought she could over look. She was finding herself becoming excited whenever she was left alone around Gourry or Zelgadis, and eventually even total strangers. She was hot all the time. After two days, she could no longer keep her mind out of the gutter. The last straw finally came on the fourth day when she practically threw herself at Zelgadis. Not that she had any deep seated feelings for him or anything. It was a physical impulse, and her body was undergoing changes that demanded that she take a mate soon. After that, she decided that there was no way she was going to embarrass herself like that again and resigned herself to her room.

Perhaps the worst part of the whole thing was the outcome. Once a dragon went into heat, she'd stay in heat until either one of two things happened. The first way to end it was simply to take a mate. The other way was to simply let the heat progress until the dragon expired, either from complications or from simple starvation. Filia, unwilling to break her vow of celibacy, and not wanting to throw herself at complete strangers, had resigned herself to staying cooped up in her room until it was over. The alternative wasn't even an option in her mind. She could tell Lina and Amelia had feelings for Gourry and Zel, so they were out of the question. The only other person she knew of was Xellos, and that was dismissed out of hand as well. It was true that she did have something of a little crush on him, but knowing what he was and who he was, she'd never admit it in a million years.

Filia rolled onto her side, facing the wall her bed was pushed up against. The wall had somewhat of a cooling effect for a little while at least, so she would periodically turn toward it. She tugged the sheet that lay loosely over her body up to cover herself and looked unhappily at the encroaching darkness that sundown was bringing. It wouldn't be much longer. She could already feel her insides tying themselves in knots. It might take another day, maybe two. This comforted her a little, knowing that it wouldn't last much longer. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, making Filia hide her head underneath her soaking wet pillow.

"Go 'way!", she mumbled, hoping whoever it was listened to her. She was thankful she'd locked the door to her room so no one could come in without her permission.

"Miss Filia?", Amelia asked from the other side of the door, "It's time for dinner. Are you coming down?" Filia didn't even roll over toward the door.

"I'm not leaving my room," Filia replied hoarsely. She tugged the sheet tighter over her sweaty frame.

"Then I'll bring some food in to you, okay?", Amelia asked, worriedly, "You need to eat something, Miss Filia. You'll make yourself sick..." Filia repressed the urge to chuckle bitterly to herself.

"I'm not hungry," she snapped instead. She really only wanted to be left alone right now.

"Oh, okay," Amelia said dejectedly, "I'll come back and check on you a little later, then, okay? If you need anything, let me know." Filia didn't answer. Instead, she waited on the smaller girl's footsteps to fade out down the hall. She really didn't like hurting Amelia's feelings like that. She supposed the girl felt guilty over snapping at her a few days ago over the incident with Zelgadis and blamed herself for Filia's recent retreat into her room. Filia sighed, removing the sweat-soaked pillow from her head and flopping back down on top of it.

A few minutes passed while Filia watched the shadows play across her window, making patterns of fading light against the wooden floors and walls. She considered rolling over to light the lamp on the nightstand beside her bed, but decided it was too much effort and she wasn't going to be doing anything that required light anyway. Suddenly, the lamp was lit, casting light against the wall Filia was carefully studying. She started for a moment before realizing that someone was in the room with her, and she had a pretty good idea who.